Workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aelst Aalst 1502 - 1550 Brussels

E. Bermejo, ‘Pinturas de Adrian Isenbrant y Jan van Dornicke en colecciones de Navarra’, in Principe de Viana, Primer Congreso General de Historia de Navarra, 1988, pp. 43-44, reproduced pp. 48-49, plates 3&4, as Jan van Dornicke, from a private collection in Navarra.

This triptych is a fine example of the type of altarpiece produced within the workshop of Pieter Coecke van Aelst, one of the leading Antwerp mannerists, during the second quarter of the 16th century. The composition almost certainly reflects an original design by Coecke van Aelst. Although no prototypes for the wings have as yet been identified, the central panel is known through an autograph variant today in the Royal Collection at Hampton Court (dated by Dr. Lorne Campbell to circa 1530), which displays numerous differences in the disposition of the figures and arrangement of the landscape.¹

In 1988 Dr. Elisa Bermejo (see Literature) published the present work as a late work by Jan van Dornicke (formerly known as the Master of 1518), probably completed by his son-in-law Coecke Van Aelst, who took over the running of the family workshop following the cessation of Van Dornicke’s production in or around 1527. It seems more likely however that the triptych was painted by a workshop assistant, directly under the supervision of Coecke van Aelst, and reflects an early design by the artist at a time when his style was largely dependant on the work of his father-in-law, prior to the development of his own personal style from the 1530s onwards.

A fragment of a replica of the central panel (with only minor differences), today in the Museum voor Schone Kunsten, Ghent, is listed by Marlier,² which the author gives to Le Maître de la Femme Adultère de Gand (named after his eponymous work in that museum), which although of lesser quality than the present work also argues for the existence of a prototype by Coecke van Aelst, now lost.
 
¹ See L. Campbell, The Early Flemish Pictures in the Collection of Her Majesty the Queen, Cambridge 1985, p. 32, cat. no. 21, reproduced plate 25.
² See G. Marlier, Pierre Coeck D’Alost, Brussels 1966, p. 403, reproduced figure 362.